Update: Here’s an official reply from K-1 (Douglas Kaplan) regarding comments made by Bas Boon on Saturday:

K1G is organizing great events in the US, Europe and Asia. Mike and I are working with our team to bring together the best fighters for the fans and will do exactly that. Tanikawasan and Ishiisan are not involved. I know this because I am involved and know what is going on intimately. I don’t know why Bas Boon is spending so much time in the press but we are busy focused on delivering the fans what they want, incredible K1 events.

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The following is a press release issued by Bas Boon of Golden Glory on Saturday morning. The comments made in this press release do not necessarily reflect the personal or professional views of Fight Opinion or anyone else in the press who received said statement on this mailing list. Make of this press release as you wish.

It should be further noted that the name Miro Mijatovic is listed during this statement. When admitted K-1 yakuza fixer Seiya Kawamata sued Nippon TV over the New Year’s Eve TV contract, it was Miro who won a lien in Tokyo District Court against anything Kawamata won in his lawsuit against N-TV. The court considered Miro to be of good faith & character.

You will notice a couple of [later on...] marks during the statement. This is due to focusing on the main claims made in said statement.

If any parties named in this statement would wish to send us a statement for rebuttal to post on the site, we will gladly do so.

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BAS BOON STATEMENT TEXT

All grammar/punctuation in statement is not altered from original statement text.

Interview with Bas Boon by Tadashi Tanaka the Japanese journalist who broke the story in 2006 in the Japanese magazine Shukan Gendai (Weekly Gendai) containing allegations that the Pride Fighting Championships, once the largest mixed martial arts organization in the world, was actually owned by the Yakuza, Japanese organized crime. Pride shows were dropped by Fuji TV, a major national broadcast network in Japan. Pride eventually went under”.

On April 5th Tokyo time, Mr. Tanikawa issued a press release regarding the establishment of a new K-1 by K-1 Global Holdings as well as his resignation from K-1 FEG. I will summarize what he said and point out some grave errors of fact he has made. To recap the facts:

1. Golden Glory has filed a petition in Japan to have FEG declared bankrupt

2. The petition was filed by us on March 14, 2012 in the Tokyo District Court.

3. FEG is no longer financially sound, and is unable to pay its creditors, including KOI (Knockout Investments, N.V.), which is owed in excess of $1 Million. Including other parties who are also owed money by FEG the amount may exceed $30 million.

4. Despite repeated promises to pay, Mr. Tanikawa of FEG stated in writing on Feb. 9, 2012 that it has released its employees and has no funds to pay KOI.

5. Golden Glory and its fighters have suffered damages resulting from FEG’s failure to pay

6. Golden Glory has filed this petition to seek the Court’s protection to find and secure any assets of FEG which should be used to repay its creditors

7. A company called EMCOM Holdings issued an announcement dated Jan.31, 2012 that it had acquired a Hong Kong registered company called K-1 Global Holdings and had funded this company to take over the loans made by a Japanese company called Barbizon connected to Kazuyoshi Ishii. Barbizon had security for its loans to FEG, this security was over the trademarks of K-1 (owned by Ishii) and the historical K-1 fight footage (owned by FEG): http://www.hd.emcom.jp/en/pdf/20120131_002.pdf

8. As a creditor of FEG, Golden Glory is concerned that some transactions will drain FEG of its remaining assets and goodwill and leave the creditors with nothing. We hope that this bankruptcy proceeding will also lead to an opportunity to shed light on the parties and what is really going on with the K-1 brand. We just want to get our athletes paid what they are owed by K-1.

[later on...]

If the court brings out all the facts, don’t be surprised to see that Mr. Kazuyoshi Ishii is still a major shareholder in the overall organization alongside EMCOM, and may still control the international rights to K-1.

It will be interesting to see how the court will handle FEG’s assets changing hands not long before I filed the bankruptcy lawsuit. Everybody can smell rotten fish here.

We have filed a petition for bankruptcy of FEG/K-1 and that’s why Mr. Tanikawa made this announcement:

You will hear a lot of this in the press in the near future. The K-1/FEG management are the ones who have created a staggering debt and worst of all, left the kickboxing athletes without pay, while apparently managing to benefit themselves. It’s going to be tough going for K-1 and it will be interesting to see what kind of sponsors or TV broadcasters will want to be associated with anybody dealing with K-1 or Its Showtime.

The most tragic aspect of this is that there were many incredibly talented athletes, production companies, venues, and many other suppliers who were making an honest living providing services to K-1.

Tanikawa’s latest press release states that I am trying to hurt and destroy K-1, but the truth is absolutely the opposite. We were trying to rescue it and they already destroyed the brand themselves. I have no grudge with Simon Rutz. if we did we would never have considered working with him.

[Later on...]

It’s funny how in court Mr. Ishii claimed he had nothing to do with the fighting branch anymore but in China I witnessed with my own eyes a huge press conference were they announced 60 % for Mr. Bruno Wu and 40% for Mr. Ishii in a joint venture. Mr. Wu apparently did some more research and pulled out of this venture.

They made a deal to keep the Its Showtime fighters cheap and agreed to pay only 50% in the form of a signing bonus for old debt to Showtime fighters owed by K-1.

Simon then made a deal for himself … Showtime made a deal with Gunil “Mike” Kim (who Simon hated first, Kim made Simon looked like a fool when the “last 16” Grand Prix in China was cancelled in 2011,with the so- called reason of visa problems).

Their new plan is apparently to run K-1 events in Holland (under the management of Simon’s/Showtime team and run Showtime in Japan under the management of old K-1 and Mr. Kim) this way they hope to avoid the problems with bad press and possible government scrutiny as they hope to renew the TV contracts under a new face.

[Later on...]

I had enough of their miss-truths and deception lies and came with my own investors and have launched the Glory brand globally. We have signed Albert Kraus, Petrosyan, Le Banner, Peter Aerts the whole Golden Glory team and others. Tanikawa even mentioned this in his press release as if we had acted improperly: sure these K-1 fighters made a living for a long time with K-1, but K-1 does not own them and certainly K-1 do not have any rights or claims when they do not pay fighters their outstanding debt for over 15 months! Then somebody comes and pays 100% or close to 100% of the outstanding amounts in the form of a new signing bonuses to these incredible athletes How does this make me the guy who is trying to ruin K-1, according Tanikawa?

It’s like a slapstick movie — when the petition for bankruptcy was filled it took Tanikawa less than one day to leave the sinking ship and make his announcement.

The next weeks will be really interesting to see all the excuses made by “former” K-1 employees and executives. The funny thing is that many fighters are still being approached by Tanikawa even today to sign with K-1 Global Holdings owned by EMCOM. The personal assistant of Tanikawa works now for Mr. Kim. Mr. Ishii and Mr. Kim have companies in Hong Kong. Is the plan to have the trademarks of K-1 parked there?

In 2005, I started a lawsuit with Miro Mijatovic because of Pride and other problems, now history repeats itself and its K-1/FEG who did not pay their outstanding debt and I filed a petition for bankruptcy.

By the way, on April 12th Tokyo time, EMCOM Holdings press released that Mr. Ryouji Ueno stepped down as President and Mr. Hakmin Kim is back as President. We wonder this announcement could be direct result of the petition Koi/Golden Glory filed for bankruptcy and signing many top fighters to the new glory show.

Well at least he’s stopped trying to insinuate that the whole thing is being funded by Kim Dok Soo, although I do appreciate the down home country feeling that shines through his “press releases” being so linguistically and structurally inseparable from his Sherdog astroturfing.

Bas Boon must be really trippin to start bringing message board posts into this whole thing. That being said, I have more trust in someone like Boon who has been in the fight game for a long time and who is reputable for the most part over this mess that is the new “K-1″.

A lot of those debts to individual fighters and other parties have a three-year expiration date under Japanese law if they don’t make any legal moves to try and get their money back before then.

Beyond that, I don’t know Japanese law but in America this would be a clear cut bankruptcy case. They don’t have anywhere near $30 million worth of assets and no means to really make that kind of money, either as a booking agency, or in loaning out the K-1 name, or any other way.

And honestly, if Kawajiri or any other high-level MMA fighter is still owed money you’d think they could simply have a court declare their contract null and void and sign with Bellator or the UFC or something, or with OneFC on their own terms (you know, terms where OneFC would compete against other companies to sign these guys).